Ra Meets Rob: September 9th, 2013

On this show we invited Dr Rob Cockcroft from McMaster University to join us on air to tell us about (among other things) his current research on ancient Egyptian astronomy. Check out the show notes and podcast below.

Live Guest Interview: Dr. Robert CockcroftBiography: Dr. Cockcroft is originally from the United Kingdom, where he studied astrophysics at the University College London. Upon moving to Canada, he took up research in the field of galaxy formation and evolution (focused on M33) at McMaster University, where he completed his PhD under Dr. William Harris. He has since begun a postdoctoral fellowship position in the field of ancient Egyptian Astronomy under Dr. Sarah Symons. Dr. Cockcroft is a 1st-year undergraduate physics lecturer and also manages and presents at McMaster’s McCallion Planetarium, one of the oldest planetariums in the country.Contact: McCallion Planetarium – homepage, facebookDiscussion Topics:
1. Research as a grad student
2. Egyptian Astronomy
3. McCallion Planetarium/3D theatre/ Other McMaster Astronomy projects

News:
1. LADEE is Launched. NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) launched from Wallops, Va on September 6, 2013 @ 11:27pm EDT. Why a renewed interest in the Moon? Or is it delayed/revived interest? (Suggested Reading: NASA mission page, Universe Today article).
2. Curiosity Corner with Ryan Marciniak. Good to shake off the martian Rust – Eclipses seen of Martian moons, and slow progress toward Mt.Sharp since leaving glenelg. 8 Km left to go before reaching the base of the mountain to study deep rock layers and help complete the picture of a warm, wet, martian past. During the long trek, the rover set new records for distance traveled in a day, at 100.3 m on July 21st, 2013. During its travels, on August 17th, the rover captured images of the occultation of Mars’ two moons using Mastcam, showing the larger moon phobos passing in front of the smaller moon deimos. This will allow scientists to take more accurate measurements of the orbits of phobos and deimos. The rover also analysed a sample of soil from Glenelg that it had been carrying for 75 days, with results to be released shortly. The rover will arrive sometime in the next year, but as long as the rover is doing something noteworthy, or even a bit cool.
3. Trojan Asteroid shares orbit of Uranus – http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/science-qf99-trojan-asteroid-uranus-01348.html